


The Sun Goes Down And The World Goes Dancing

by GingerTodgers



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Inspired by Music, M/M, Morning After, photobooth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-10
Updated: 2017-01-10
Packaged: 2018-09-16 14:45:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9276587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GingerTodgers/pseuds/GingerTodgers
Summary: Waking up hungover together isn't new, it's the photos that are making Dean and Seamus nervous.





	

**Author's Note:**

> "Maybe it's you  
> You know your eyes are awful blue  
> Maybe it's more  
> Maybe you're all I ever waited for  
> After all the endless nights when I wished I could still cry"
> 
> Inspired by Magnetic Fields - The Sun Goes Down And The World Goes Dancing

The strip of photo booth pictures is on the floor, pinned under a discarded New Balance trainer that definitely wasn't Dean's. He's lying face down, arm hanging off the bed so that his fingers brush the photos. They had been taken in an old fashioned Muggle booth; without props or flattering lighting. There was a stain across the top of the first photo. Blood? Lipstick?

Behind him, someone rolls over, taking the duvet with them and leaving Dean's naked back exposed to the cold morning air. He shivers, a flood of saliva fills his mouth and he gags, struggling into a sitting position and leaning forward, elbows propped on his knees.

"Wah?" The duvet thief turns over again, peeping out at Dean. "Yuh'gonna be sick?" Dean shakes his head, not sure if he was lying but unwilling to tempt Seamus' gag-reflex. Because it was Seamus, of course it was Seamus. Bringer of hangovers and stealer of covers. "Sure?" Seamus is sitting up now, propped against the headboard and rubbing his sleep encrusted eyes.

Dean nods again, watching Seamus from under his own crooked elbow. Seamus yawns, stretches, slides back down so only a tuft of chestnut hair is visible. "Du'yuh think yuh mum'll make us breakfast?"

"Depends" Dean straightens up, slowly. Looks around for his glasses.

"On?"

"On which of us made a bigger tit of ourselves when we got in last night."

"Probably me" Dean hears, rather than sees, Seamus' grin.

"Well" he finally gives up and summons his glasses, they erupted from a pile of clothes on the floor, trailing a sock behind them as they fly into his hand. "That's alright then, she already knows you're a wanker". He drapes the sock on top of Seamus' head and sits back against the headboard.

"Your mum loves me" Seamus pushes the duvet away from his face, whipping the sock back at Dean with far more speed than his hangover and slurred speech should have allowed.

"Loves... pities..." Dean yawns, batting the sock away and pinching a pillow - his own pillow - leaving Seamus' head to thump back against the mattress. Seamus whines.

"I feel like shit. Why do I feel like shit?"

"Think Padma spiked the punch."

"Punch" Seamus snorts, "who serves punch at a house party? Don't we get enough of that at the Ministry circle wanks?"

"Think the term you're looking for is "circle jerk"" Dean replies, eyes drifting back to the photos on the floor.

"M'not American, I don't jerk, I wank."

"Hmmm, while I admire your commitment to resisting the Americanisation of your bedroom habits" Dean stretches out to pick up the photos, bracing his hand on the floor. "There comes a point, Mr Finnigan" he snags them and swings upright, a rush of blood making his head spin, "when it makes you sound like a bit of a dickhead."

"Yeah" Seamus is gazing at something near Dean's right hip, his eyes slightly unfocused.

"You alright? Gonna be sick?"

"Nah" he gives himself a shake, "Head's a bit claggy s'all, what's that?"

"Exhibit A for whichever of us is more likely to get a bacon sarnie off mum."

Seamus groans again, listing to the side and resting his head against Dean's shoulder. "Thought we agree that it was me. When did we take these?" his freckled fingers smooth the edge of the photos, sending a slight vibration through Dean's hand.

"After we left the girls?"

They are smiling in the first photo. The harsh light of the photo booth washing most of the colour out of Seamus' hair and turning his pale blue eyes even paler. The flash bounced off Dean's glasses, hiding his eyes. In the second photo they're wrestling, Seamus trying to steal Dean's glasses as Dean laughed down at him.

Dean didn't like having his photo taken. Magical photos were too uncanny valley, leaving him feeling flayed open and yet detached from the tall, lanky boy gazing back at him. Muggle photos were even worse. The posed photos too stiff, the candid ones feeling like something had been snatched from him. Looking at that second photo, at the soft way he looked at Seamus, bending his head forward slightly as if to kiss the smaller man. It was too much, too intimate. Seamus moves beside him.

"That first one makes us look like aliens. I look like I'm about to steal everyone's souls and feed them to you." Seamus' voice is too fast, lilting up at the end. Dean's face burns and he grabs the bottle of water perched beside the bed. Drains it.

Seamus squeaks. "Was that the last of the water? Greedy! No more souls for you." He carries on until Dean accepts defeat, tumbling out of bed and going to fill the bottle at the bathroom tap.

He stands before the mirror, staring into his own, bloodshot eyes and trying to corral his scattered thoughts. That second photo had captured all the sneaking, bubbling excitement Dean feels every time he's near Seamus. Excitement that he'd been sure, so sure, would disappear once they left Hogwarts; pushed into a sagging box of half-forgotten memories. Next to the tickets from his first West Ham match and the phone number of the first man to ever ask him out.

Dean hadn't called the number. He was too in love with his best friend to view the experience as anything other than a nice ego-boost. But now, shivering in the bathroom with the cold porcelain stinging his feet and the phantom touch of Seamus' hair still brushing against his throat, Dean wonders what the rest of the photos will reveal. He should have checked them first, hidden them if the love-drunk look in his eyes had continued into the third and fourth image. And now? Now he's left Seamus alone with them. Shit.

Walking back into the bedroom, he tosses Seamus the water bottle and settles on top of the duvet, close enough to see the rest of the photos yet far enough to avoid soft hair and warm skin. Seamus doesn't say anything and takes around ten hours to drain the bottle of water. It's awkward. Is Dean making it more awkward by not looking at him? Photo Dean is definitely making it more awkward, with his stupid open face. Faces. Who needs them? Maybe Dean could just chew off his own face off and avoid ever having to look at the small strip of photos, still clutched in Seamus' hand.

The third photo shows Seamus with Dean's glasses tucked in his shirt pocket. He's beaming up at Dean, mouth half-open, mid-punchline. Dean is in profile, leaning against the right-hand side of the photo frame, laughing with his eyes squeezed shut and his head thrown back.

"Oh."

"Yeah." Seamus' voice is small, timid. Like he was asking permission for something Dean hadn't even known he was able to give.

Now. Looking at the photo in relentless light of a hangover, Dean struggles to understand how he'd missed Seamus' expression. It was familiar but had Seamus always looked this way at Dean? Open, adoring, different to how he looked at Ron or Neville. Even different to how he looked at David, the boyfriend who'd materialised their first year out of Hogwarts and disappeared just as quickly last month.

Seamus' thumb is covering the fourth photo. Still avoiding eye-contact, Dean reaches out and tries to push it away. Seamus grips the strip harder, crushing the final photo.

"Is it really that bad?" Dean asks, his voice rough.

"S'fine" Seamus mumbles, thumb still firmly in place.

"What's it of?"

"You're smiling at me."

"Oh."

"And I'm smiling at you." Seamus shifts closer to Dean, his voice nearly a whisper.

"Well" Dean says, keeping his eyes fixed on the photos and Seamus' stubby thumb. "We do that a lot."

"Yeah" Seamus ducks his head, forcing Dean to meet his eyes. "Yeah."

They stare at each other. Part of Dean just wants to put Seamus in a headlock and force him to reveal the final photo. Another part was more concerned with the way the corner of Seamus' mouth twitches before he speaks again.

"Do you... David was great and... The thing is..." Seamus cuts himself off again, swallows, the helpless little grin back in place. Dean watches, licking his own lips. When had they got so dry? Slowly. So slowly. He watches himself reach out a hand and rest it on Seamus' shoulder.

"I... um..." His hand travels over Seamus' shoulder, curls around the back of his neck and, in an act of daring so incomprehensible Dean is tempted to check himself for the Imperious Curse, pulls Seamus closer. Their foreheads touch, sour morning breath mingling between them, eyes closed and hands locked around the photo strip.

They keep their mouths closed while they kiss. A faint brush of lips, brief enough that it barely happened. And then. Lips moving against lips, fingers reaching up to explore jawlines and slide through bed-mussed hair.

Dean laughs when he breaks the kiss. It's definitely a kiss.

"We'd better be snogging in that photo."

"We're not" Seamus beams, reaching out a hand to touch the dimple in Dean's right cheek. "You're trying to get your glasses back and I'm pushing you off the stool."

"Wanker!" Dean laughs again, falling back against the duvet and tugging Seamus with him. "Think I just aged by about ten years." He feels soft kisses pressing along his throat, across his collarbone. Tentatively, he runs a hand through Seamus' hair. "Is this..." the laughter trickles away and his heartbeat picks up.

Can Seamus feel it too, pressed so close to Dean's chest? Or is his head buzzing as well? Full of thoughts chasing each other as a thousands misread glances and half-spoken thoughts snap into focus. Dean feels light, light enough to float off the bed if Seamus wasn't here to hold him in place. To slide kisses under his skin and reel him into something Dean had always wanted, yet never believed would happen.

"Yeah" Seamus sighs against Dean's neck. "It is."


End file.
